Reminder: You don’t have to buy your next iPhone from a carrier

Jefferson Graham previews new features expected on the next iPhone, on #TalkingTech.

Apple fan Tetsuya Tamura holds a China made "iPhone 6" as he wears a t-shirt with writing translating to "7 days remaining for iPhone 6 launch" as he and other fans queue outside an Apple store in Tokyo on September 12, 2014.(Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno, AFP/Getty Images)

Q: If I decide to buy one of the new iPhones, should I get it from Apple or my wireless carrier?

A: In the bad old days — by which I mean, up until just over a decade ago — you had no choice. Carriers sold phones at what seemed like a low price, except that you’d make that up in higher service fees that stayed high even after the carrier had recouped its subsidy of the phone price.

This option, however, won’t jump out at you on Apple’s site. You’ll have to pick out an iPhone and a carrier, then select “Show more payment options.” With AT&T, Sprint or Verizon, you’ll then see an “Apple iPhone Payments” choice listed that has you make 24 monthly payments on a phone that comes unlocked, ready to use with any other carrier.

Of those three choices, the Sprint and Verizon phones offer maximum compatibility with U.S. services, as PCMag’s Sascha Segan advised in a post after the iPhone 7’s debut.

Apple’s installment-plan option provides the biggest advantage over AT&T’s comparable choice, since that one leaves your phone locked to the carrier until you pay it off. So you can’t switch to another carrier, and if you go overseas you’re stuck with AT&T’s international roaming, which while better than before at $10 a day still costs more than a prepaid SIM card bought overseas.

With Sprint, your options are either leasing the phone — on terms that over two years add up to the same total cost as buying it — or paying the full price upfront. With a lease, the phone also stays locked to Sprint domestically until you pay it off. Sprint will, however, unlock phones for international use on request, and its own roaming option — free but slow 2G data, free texting and calls at 20 cents a minute — isn’t bad.

Verizon, meanwhile, doesn’t lock its own phones — so you’re not locked into its $10/day international roaming — but does offer installment-plan payments. So in that case, you might as well decide based on which store is closer or which company you like better overall.

What about T-Mobile? Apple’s site will offer a no-interest-for-a-year financing deal tied to getting a new Barclaycard Apple Rewards Visa. T-Mobile has a normal installment-payment plan but, again, that keeps the phone locked to T-Mobile until you pay off the device. It offers international roaming on the same terms as Sprint.

If you plan on replacing this new iPhone in a year, I would ask you to reconsider. The pace of phone evolution has slowed, while you can count on Apple to provide years of software updates. Most customers now keep their phones for from two to three years, analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research said.

But if you’re a compulsive upgrader, Sprint’s lease plan will let you trade in an old iPhone for a new one after 12 months of payments. Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program allows the same flexibility but it costs about $5 more a month by virtue of including the company’s AppleCare+ device-protection plan — which could be a good thing if you’re accident-prone with phones.

The iPhone 5c was also released on Sept. 20, 2013. The 5c featured a polycarbonate shell instead of aluminum and was available in several colors. The 5c was sold at a lower price point than the 5s. Ng Han Guan, AP

From left, the iPhone 6S Plus, 6S and SE were first introduced in late 2015. The 6s updated the internal hardware and added a 12 megapixel camera. The SE served as a successor to the 5s. Julie Jacobson, AP

A visitor tries out an Apple iPhone 7 on the first day of sales of the new phone at the Berlin Apple store on Sept. 16, 2016, in Berlin, Germany. The new phone comes in two sizes, one with a 4.7 inch display, the other with a 5.5 inch display. Sean Gallup, Getty Images

A Chinese couple tests the new iPhone 7 during the opening sale launch at an Apple store in Shanghai on Sept. 16, 2016. With new iPhones hitting the markets on Sept. 16, Apple is seeking to regain momentum and set new trends for the smartphone industry and tech sector. Johannes Eisele, AFP/Getty Images